Father accuses police of murdering son after Tobago shootout

STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

The fa­ther of one of the sus­pects killed by po­lice in a shootout in Buc­coo, To­ba­go, on Tues­day night, has ac­cused of­fi­cers of mur­der­ing his son.

The in­ci­dent took place around 7 pm as Ja­mal Clarke, 24, and an uniden­ti­fied sus­pect were trav­el­ling along Gold­en Grove Road, Buc­coo.

Po­lice said they in­ter­cept­ed a sil­ver Aqua af­ter its oc­cu­pants al­leged­ly opened fire. Of­fi­cers re­turned fire, hit­ting both oc­cu­pants.

Clarke died at the scene, while the oth­er sus­pect suc­cumbed to his in­juries at the Scar­bor­ough hos­pi­tal. An of­fi­cer who was shot dur­ing the ex­change is in sta­ble con­di­tion at the hos­pi­tal.

Levi Clarke, Ja­mal’s fa­ther, in­sists his son was not in­volved in any crim­i­nal ac­tiv­i­ty.

In an in­ter­view at the Scar­bor­ough morgue on Fri­day, he re­vealed that he had spo­ken to his son just min­utes be­fore the in­ci­dent. Clarke said his son told him he was leav­ing to get a hair­cut.

How­ev­er, he nev­er made it far from their Gold­en Grove Road home.

“They spray down my son and kill him. They mur­der my youth man, but God is the boss,” he said.

Po­lice are in­ves­ti­gat­ing the in­ci­dent.